DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - Unveiled: China's 245mph train service is the world's fastest

**M_Marked** · 12-29-2009, 08:55 AM

Yeah, as long as Amtrak is sharing/renting tracks, it will never be more then what it is.

If half of those new highways had trains built into them, that'd be a grat way to start a new era of rail.

that's not entirely true. while it will never be true HSR, it certainly could be a lot more than what it is (indeed, as noted, trains used to run faster AND share tracks). that said, for HSR, you do need tracks that are straight and dedicated to high speed operation (though I think the CHUNNEL handles freight at night). the reason the pitt run is so slow is that it's geared towards freight and lacks capacity. there's no reason Amtrak can't share track and run the route faster but it would require money (and there may even be room for some dedicated track since there's row for four tracks). europe didn't build these things overnight like china (which is the other point, they can just decide to do these things because it's not a democracy) and people do effectively argue that Europe has ignored rail's ability to move goods. nonetheless, its frustrating that so little of the so called stimulus bill was real infrastructure investment that will improve our lives and productive capacity over many years, since we will be paying for it for many years. same with the wars of course, including the drug war.

12-29-2009, 08:55 AM	#14
M_Marked Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 563 Senior Member	Yeah, as long as Amtrak is sharing/renting tracks, it will never be more then what it is. If half of those new highways had trains built into them, that'd be a grat way to start a new era of rail. that's not entirely true. while it will never be true HSR, it certainly could be a lot more than what it is (indeed, as noted, trains used to run faster AND share tracks). that said, for HSR, you do need tracks that are straight and dedicated to high speed operation (though I think the CHUNNEL handles freight at night). the reason the pitt run is so slow is that it's geared towards freight and lacks capacity. there's no reason Amtrak can't share track and run the route faster but it would require money (and there may even be room for some dedicated track since there's row for four tracks). europe didn't build these things overnight like china (which is the other point, they can just decide to do these things because it's not a democracy) and people do effectively argue that Europe has ignored rail's ability to move goods. nonetheless, its frustrating that so little of the so called stimulus bill was real infrastructure investment that will improve our lives and productive capacity over many years, since we will be paying for it for many years. same with the wars of course, including the drug war.
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